Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Bash Bish Falls is located in the most South Western part of MA, right near Mount Washington State Forest. It is also the highest single drop waterfall in the state.

It’s not a very long or difficult hike, but it does offer some great scenery. The hike down to the falls is around 30 minutes. It’s often wet so it can be a bit slippery, but otherwise, heading down is pretty easy. Going back up, well, that’s a bit of a different story. It’s a pretty steep ascent, so a bit more challenging on the way up, but overall, a quick and relatively easy hike. The hike up generally takes no more than an hour. On the way home, we stopped at the Barrington Brewery for some lunch. Food, service and atmosphere was great. I would highly suggest stopping in if you are in the area. The website is http://www.barringtonbrewery.net/

Monday, October 18, 2010

Every year we try to go to Quabbin to look at the fall foliage. This year with the lack of rain I knew it wouldn’t be as vivid as previous years. As we drove around Quabbin my assumptions were correct. Nevertheless here are a few photo’s from the trip. If you don’t know what Quabbin is then visit http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/central/quabbin.htm for more details on it.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

I haven’t visited to October Mountain State Forest since my dad and I went camping 20yrs ago or so. October Mountain is the largest state forest in Massachusetts. The name “October Mountain” is attributed to Herman Mellville. From his house in Pittsfield he was impressed with the view of the hills in the fall.

We arrived at the campsite Friday late afternoon in the pouring rain. Luckily our camp was easy to set up, we slept in the bed of the truck. We stayed dry and elevated all weekend. The rain stopped around dusk so we started up the grill and got a fire going.

Saturday morning brought brisk but clear weather. It was 45-55 degrees. We fired up the grill and jetboil and had some breakfast. Scrambled eggs and hamburgers. Is there any better campsite breakfast then eggs and meat? I think not. After we cleaned up the dishes we decided to take the truck and explore a little. Upon check-in the ranger said there was some good fishing around so we made a quick stop to fish for an hour. At 1st I waded in and fished some cover, but didn’t have any luck. I decided to shore fish near a footbridge across the pond. Earlier I saw a lot of action there and heard of some large Pike taken recently. I tied on my trusty chartreuse spinnerbait and 1st cast out hauled in a largemouth bass.

A little while later I put the fishing gear away and we continued to explore the forest. The ranger said the roads in the forest were in poor condition but I didn’t have any troubles in my 4×4 Ram. We saw many people with their ATV’s on the trails. Our goal was a “scenic destination” that was labeled on the map. After 30-45min of driving through the forest we arrived at our destination. We stopped and took some photo’s before returning to camp. It’s to bad the foliage wasn’t as vivid as previous years due to the lack of rain.

The rest of the trip was sitting by the campfire for the night then packing up camp in the morning. It was a fun trip and I’m looking forward to going back to that pond with a boat and see what size monsters I can catch.

About Me

Hi, I’m Ben Libbey and I write the OutdoorsBen blog to help and show people the outdoors, namely Tenkara fishing, hiking, and canoeing. I started the blog in 2010 after one of the best fishing days a friend and I had. The whole goal of this blog is to share knowledge and introduce new people to the outdoors. If one person gets out and hikes or fishes because of this, then it’s a success. I was raised camping, hiking, and fishing. The earliest memories I have involve a tent or a fishing rod. If you have any questions or you want to setup a time to learn Tenkara feel free to email me at OutdoorsBen3@gmail.com